I am old enough to recall when diesel was introduced as a novel frontier for passenger transit in Austria.
In my youth, the fuel was sanctified as an ecological and thermodynamic panacea. Commended for its superior thermal efficiency and low-end torque, it was prophesied to render the petrol engine obsolete. There was, however, an immediate aesthetic obstacle: early passenger diesels possessed the acoustic and vibrational profile of agricultural tractors. No civilized driver wished to arrive for an evening in the city accompanied by the unrefined clatter of a threshing machine.
Consumer reluctance was swiftly circumvented by the state.
Governments stepped in with fiscal bribes, skewing tax codes to suppress the price of diesel at the pump while loading petrol with punitive duties. State engineering disguised as environmental foresight converted a reluctant populace. The intervention proved ruthlessly effective. Over three decades, diesel transformed from an uncouth commercial fuel into the absolute backbone of domestic passenger transport. Petrol was relegated to a near-fringe anomaly. I know the friction firsthand; when I bought my car and insisted on a petrol engine, the dealership staff treated the preference as an eccentric indulgence, if not an outright mistake.
Predictably, the cycle has now executed its inevitable reversal.
The state incentives that constructed the dependency have evaporated. Diesel is no longer a cheap, favored resource; it trades at a structural premium. The engines—once celebrated for mechanical simplicity—have become intricate, fragile labyrinths of high-pressure injection systems, particulate filters, and exhaust-treatment chemistries, carrying exorbitant acquisition costs and ruinous maintenance liabilities.
The playbook is ancient and unchanging. A population is gently corralled through artificial price signals, habituated to a system, and then systematically harvested once the trap has closed. The drivers who believed they were participating in an enlightened technological leap were merely fattening up for the shearing.
I watched the trap being set in my childhood. The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by the closing of the jaws.